1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a blocking module, and more particularly, to a blocking module of a multi-function printer.
2. Description of Related Art
Along with that the information society is coming, an office is often equipped with office automatic equipments such as scanner, photocopier or printer, and users can conduct word processing work by using the office automatic equipments. It should be noted that the above-mentioned office automatic equipments disposed in an office would occupy a lot of spaces, which triggers developing a multi-function peripheral (MFP) integrating photocopying, printing and scanning together was developed to solve the above-mentioned problem.
Usually, a user would place a pile of paper sheets at a multi-function printer for photocopying, printing or scanning, in which the multi-function printer requires a blocking module disposed therein so as to properly block a paper sheet prior to feeding the paper sheet into the multi-function printer. In the prior art, a blocking module of multi-function printer employs a gear to drive a gear rack, so that a blocking plate up-down moves in the multi-function printer to block or allow the passing of a paper sheet. However, with such a gear rack transmission, a moving space for the gear rack needs to be preserved on the vertical direction of the multi-function printer, which limits the height design and wastes space, and the overall volume of the multi-function printer is unable to be effectively reduced.
In addition, there is another conventional blocking module, in which the module achieves an effect of blocking or allowing a paper sheet to pass by using mutual-cooperation between a motor, a spring, a paper-picking arm, a retaining arm and a constraining point. However, the spring may be fatigued and the motor sometimes may get a wrong reverse rotation step-number, which would make the paper-blocking plate and the retaining arm unable to return to the positioning zero point and make the blocking module in failure. Moreover, when the cover of the multi-function printer is opened relatively to the body thereof for fixing fault, if a paper sheet still stays on the rail under the paper-blocking plate, then, as the cover is closed after fixing, the blocking module may tear the paper along with closing the cover to its original position at the body.